VM instance model in VMware vCenter ChargeBack up to version 2.0.1 still has no prorating on charges. For those of you who is not sure what I am describing by VM Instance below how its described in the “VMware-Technote-Using-vCenter-Chargeback-vCloud-Director” document as well a screenshot of where you configure VM instance in vCenter ChargeBack:

“VM Instance enables the creation of a matrix of fixed costs that apply to hard a hard bundle of vCPU (count) and memory (MB). VM Instance matrices are linked with a cost model and consist of the hierarchy selection criteria, a fixed-cost table and a default fixed cost. Selection criteria can be based on name-pattern matching or custom- attribute matching. VM Instance uses a stepping function, where the virtual machine charge steps up to the next instance size. Costs are applied only for the duration when a virtual machine is powered on and is not prorated.”

All this seems great beside the one last sentence “Costs are applied only for the duration when a virtual machine is powered on and is not prorated.” This means if you setup your fixed cost charges into there for monthly and you only powered the VM for an hour then turned it off you are being charged the full month rate.… Read More

Since the introduction of vCenter ChargeBack integration with VMware vCloud Director & I hear repeatedly questions about how its Cost Models charge in a VMware vCD environment. To be honest, the question usually come in the form that vCenter ChargeBack is not calculating the cost as I expected & something wrong with it. Most of the time it turn out nothing but a misunderstanding of vCenter ChargeBack Cost Models in a vCloud Director environment.  As vCenter ChargeBack Cost Models highly integrate with VMware vCloud Director allocation models, its very important to have a solid understanding of VMware vCD Allocation Models. As Duncan Epping & Chris Colotti both has explained vCloud Director Allocation Models extensively in two great blogs posts, I am going to only reference these and not cover it in this post & rather focus on the vCenter ChargeBack part of the story. Below are the two posts for VMware vCD Allocation Models:

vCD – Allocation Models (By Duncan Epping)

vCloud Allocation Models  (By  Chris Colotti)

Please make sure you go over one of the above posts if you still don’t have a clear understanding of the vCloud Director Allocation models before going over this post, as I am not going to cover that.… Read More

It seems the problem of vCenter ChargeBack report not displaying certain info is becoming a popular question lately. Actually this was pointed out to me earlier today by a colleague who was reviewing my vCD design. The most common info not displayed in a vCenter ChargeBack Report are below:

• vCenter ChargeBack Report Does Not Display the Network Transmitted and Network Received Information
• vCenter ChargeBack Report Does Not Display the Disk Read and Disk Write Information
• vCenter ChargeBack Report Does Not Display the Memory Usage Value and the Corresponding Cost

It seems many admins are getting to the point where one of the above list is not being displayed in the vCenter ChargeBack Reports although they select them while generating the report.

It turned out that the main cause of such a problem is that the statistics collection level is not properly set on the vCenter Server. This case seems to happen often as the required statistics collection level in vCenter in order for these to work is higher than the default in vCenter where statistics collection level is set to 1 by default, where in order for these to work you will need to change the vCenter Statistics collection level as shown below:

Desired Data                                                     Required Statistics Collection Level

Network Transmitted and Network Received                                         3 or above

Disk Read and Disk Write Information                                                    3 or above

Memory Usage Value and the Corresponding Cost                                 2 or above

Please note for the Memory Usage Value and Corresponding Cost, you will have to change it to 2 or above only if using a vCenter older than vCenter 4.… Read More